


Wanting

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22420456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: The hand on his shoulder pushes down a little harder. "Staydown, Cap, we don't know what they hit you with. The last thing we need is you to go dark side on us. Or worse."Steve gets hit with a telepathy spell that only lets him read Tony's mind. How... inconvenient.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 213
Collections: POTS (18+) Stony Stocking 2019





	Wanting

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Robin_tCJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robin_tCJ/pseuds/Robin_tCJ) in the [stony_stocking_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stony_stocking_2019) collection. 



> For Robin_tCJ's prompt:
> 
> _Just friends until one of them suddenly becomes telepathic, and falls in love and starts pining._
> 
> Enjoy, my dear!!

Steve comes to with a pounding in his skull and the sound of gunfire all around him. He's halfway upright, ready to throw himself back into the fray when a metal hand plants itself on his shoulder.

"Stay _down_ , Cap, goddammit!"

"Tony?"

"The fuck is he doing calling me by my name? He never does that in the field. Widow, Hawkeye, I need evac pronto."

"'M fine, Iron Man. Just— just gimme a sec here."

The hand on his shoulder pushes down a little harder. "Stay _down_ , Cap, we don't know what they hit you with. The last thing we need is you to go dark side on us. Or worse."

Steve smiles through the pain in his head. "Not gonna go dark side on you, Shellhead. Promise. Can't promise much else, but everything's working other than a raging headache, and that'll probably be gone in a few minutes regardless."

Tony throws out a huff at that. "Fine, Cap. You're the leader. Whatever you say. Even if you're an idiot and don't seem to give a damn about your safety and—"

Steve laughs, and wonders briefly if it's the possible concussion that's got him responding so cavalierly to Tony's teasing. "Bite your tongue, Iron Man." There's a lightness in his chest the longer he's awake, and some distant part of him is worried about this. But the rest of him has no time to think about that. There are evil sorcerers to beat.

Steve wastes no time leaping into the fray with the rest of the team. Tony stays back for a few precious seconds muttering words Steve doesn't bother listening to over the coms before he's diving in with the rest of them.

The fight is easier than it has any right to be. If Steve didn't know any better, he'd think the head honcho is out of energy after whatever he'd done to Steve. It's altogether too easy for them to round up the last of the sorcerers and get them ready to be handed off to Strange.

"Magic," Tony mutters. Steve isn't sure when Tony got so close to him. "I fucking hate magic, I swear, if Strange asks us to handle his shit _one more time_ I'll fucking—"

"Language," Steve says idly.

It takes a second for him to realize everyone's stopped what they're doing and are staring at him. He looks up at them, frowning. Tony in particular has gone sheet white. "What?"

Nat's the first to recover. "No one said anything, Cap."

Steve's frown darkens. "What are you talking about? Tony was swearing up a storm."

Nat glances over at Tony, whose lips are now pressed together in a thin line. She turns back to Steve. "No, he wasn't."

Steve looks over at Tony. He knows Tony's voice better than anyone else's, better than he's ever known anyone's voice save maybe his mother or Bucky. That was Tony, swearing and cursing magic, just like he always does when they take these jobs.

"I wasn't saying anything." Tony's voice is shaking in a way Steve has never heard out in the field before. He's three steps closer to Tony when the man holds a hand up, stopping Steve short. "Out loud."

Steve's breath leaves his chest in a rush.

"I wasn't saying anything out loud."

Oh. Oh _shit_.

* * *

Bruce isn't the only one Steve trusts to run tests on him, but when a quick check reveals that it's only Tony's thoughts that Steve can hear, he knows there's no one else Tony will let work on him. He follows the pair of them dutifully to Bruce's lab, trying to ignore the way Tony's voice keeps whispering its way into his mind. He doesn't want to know what Tony's thinking. Well, that's not entirely true. There's things that he would love to know if Tony were willing to tell him. Secrets that he wishes didn't have to be kept between them. But then, those are things he's never had the confidence to ask Tony himself. Tony should be able to keep his secrets just like the rest of them. He should be able to trust the privacy of his own mind.

Now even that's been stolen from him.

"Quit guilt-tripping yourself, Cap," Tony mutters from three feet in front of him. _It's not a good look on you._

Steve winces at the volume of the thought. Tony may as well have shouted it for how loud the words are in Steve's mind. 

Tony spins on his heel, looking back at Steve with a forced grin on his face. He continues walking alongside Bruce, but backwards now. "Seriously, Cap. We'll get this figured out and then everything will be fine.

Famous last words.

Bruce runs half a dozen tests, stares at the results with Tony peering over his shoulder, and then runs half a dozen more. By a third of the way through the second battery of tests, Steve knows what the outcome is going to be, but he lets Bruce and Tony have their safety in science. They test the directionality of the bond (one-way) and the strength of the bond (not limited to verbal thoughts, though they come through the strongest) and the distance over which the thoughts can travel (beyond their ability to measure without sticking Tony on the subway across town). It leaves all of them varying degrees of rattled, so when Bruce insists on calling it a night, Steve almost expects Tony to refuse. But he seems as agitated by the results as Steve is, and doesn't press.

Or maybe whatever Steve's feeling is just Tony's worry seeping through the bond. Who knows.

The vain hope that this might fade overnight is broken when Steve makes out Tony's irritated grumbling halfway through his morning run. Steve grits his teeth and keeps running. He forces himself to ignore that little part of him that whispers about how much he wants this. How he's always wanted more insight into Tony's mind. How Tony's always been the most elusive of the team and how Steve would give just about anything to know what the hell's going on inside his brilliant mind.

He'd never meant it like this.

Tony looks up at him when he makes it back to the Tower half an hour later, something hopeful in his expression. Steve makes a face and shakes his head. No reason to hide it.

Tony's face falls and he turns back to his coffee. Steve maneuvers around him and the blaring sound of his thoughts. Tony's always been loud when he needed to be, but there's something about hearing that loudness when no one else can that twists Steve's chest up in knots.

He doesn't bother pouring the orange juice out into a glass, drinking straight from the carton.

_Seriously, who does he think he is looking like that? Doing shit like that?_

Steve turns and lowers the carton to meet Tony's eyes, one eyebrow cocked up in question.

Tony blinks at him, seeming to not understand at first. Then he wrinkles his nose. "It's gross, Cap. Come on, you've gotta know that."

Steve blinks. "No one else drinks orange juice, though."

"Doesn't make it any less gross."

"It seriously bothers you that much?"

Tony shrugs. "Not enough to ever harass you out loud about it."

Steve winces at the implication. "Tony, I'm so—"

"Don't apologize, Steve. Not for something that isn't your fault."

"I know, but if I hadn't—"

"Jumped in front of me in a misguided attempt to save my sorry ass?" Tony quirks an eyebrow at him. "I'm not unwilling to hear an apology for that. But the rest of it isn't your fault. So unless you were about to apologize for throwing yourself into the line of fire _again_ —"

"I wasn't."

 _Didn't think so._ "Then there's nothing for you to apologize for. Not that I want to hear, anyway." Tony lifts his mug to his lips again, as though that closes the conversation. Steve doesn't quite agree, but he doesn't think it's his place to disagree right now.

"Right. Well."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Go take a shower Cap. You reek." When Steve makes no move to leave, Tony rolls his eyes and stands up. "I'm going down to the workshop. Let me know if you need me."

"Yeah. Okay."

Tony rolls his eyes again and turns on his heel to make his way down to the lab. Steve doesn't follow.

At least, not right away.

* * *

It's no secret that Tony is Steve's favorite. He's not sure when that happened, but no one on the team would ever deny that. Somewhere between an argument in a helicarrier and diving into the fray in Manhattan with the man, Steve realized there was more to the man than meets the eye. Somewhere between watching him save the planet from invasion and hearing him offer Steve a place in the Tower, Steve realized there might even be something like friendship here. And somewhere in everything that came that — fights and enemies and new allies and more — Steve realized there could be something more in his heart for Tony.

But he knew better than to broach the topic with Tony. Even when he wasn't with Pepper, Tony had never looked at Steve with anything but friendship. Never with anything more than a distant, idle appreciation for their place in one another's lives. Steve had long since learned Tony's tells, and there was nothing in his face that could have ever even been interpreted as anything other than friendship.

And it's not that Steve isn't grateful for that. Having Tony in his life in some way is better than not having him at all. It's just that he knows he's the one that needs this relationship more out of the two of them. So he tries to keep to the edges of the Tower while Bruce and Strange work on finding a way to reverse the sorcerer's spell. Better not to remind Tony that he can hear every last one of his thoughts more than necessary.

Because Tony seems willing to do just about anything to make this go away. He's desperate in a way that Steve can't ever remember him being before, and that Nat says she hasn't seen since 2010. Steve can't say that doesn't hurt. Despite Tony's desperation, nothing seems to be enough. There are tests almost on the daily, and Steve's used to being the one that's dragging his feet up to the lab for whatever test they want to run. The one time gets there before Tony is ten days in. When he gets there, he walks in on Bruce and Strange talking in hushed tones. They go silent immediately, and Bruce looks guilty in a way that Steve's never seen on him before.

"What is it?"

Bruce looks over at Strange who simply raises one thin eyebrow at him as though in challenge. Bruce sighs and shakes him head. "It's nothing, Cap."

Steve's halfway across the room before he can stop himself. He knows a lie when he hears one. "Banner. What is it?"

Bruce looks over at Strange again, but the man is unmoved. "Trust me Cap. You don't want to know."

The understanding is immediate. "A cure?" he asks. "You've been sitting on a cure and you haven't told us?"

Bruce winces. "It's not that simple, Cap."

"Then make it that simple."

"Tony—"

"Tony already nixed that plan," Tony says as he breezes his way past Steve and into the lab.

Steve jerks back. "What?"

Tony turns to him, eyebrow raised and an amused look on his face. "I already nixed that plan," Tony says slowly, as though speaking to a child.

Steve purses his lips and crosses his arms. "Without even asking me?"

Tony turns to Steve, fixing him with the full force of his glare. "Yes. Because you're not the one that's on the hook for this, Cap." 

Stv throws his hands up in the air. "What does that even mean?"

"It means I know you've been avoiding me because you're so damn sick of hearing me in your head all the time. And I know you wouldn't want to do this even if you knew what it was."

"You don't know a damn thing."

"Fine," Tony says sharply, "then maybe I don't want to do it. Hmm? You ever think of that?"

Steve reels back, struck by Tony's words. Tony's eyes go wide, like there's something he isn't saying. Like Steve doesn't understand the full depth of this admission.

Tony startles, and Steve turns to see Bruce at his shoulder, one hand on Tony's elbow. "Tony."

Tony huffs out a breath, reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Sorry," he mutters. "Sorry, Cap, I didn't mean it like that."

Steve holds back his instinctive response — _Clearly you did_ — and nods stiffly. "It's fine." Against his better judgment, he goes out on a limb and asks. "Are you saying you _don't_ want me to keep my distance?"

Tony looks up, a bewildered look on his face. "When did I ever say that?"

"I just— I figured you wouldn't want a reminder of all this hanging around in the lab."

Tony's eyes go wide and he licks his lips. "Steve—" He shakes his head, laughing and running a hand through his hair. "It's—" He slants his eyes over at Bruce whose face remains impassive. Tony huffs and looks up at Steve. "It's worse when you're not there.

"What?"

"I'm used to you being down there, taking up space. When you're gone— when you're gone it feels wrong and just reminds me even more of what's going on."

Steve's throat goes tight. "Oh."

That sound seems to be enough to push Tony into action. "Yeah, _oh_ , so just— if it bothers you that much—"

"It doesn't bother me."

"Then quit avoiding me, dammit."

Tony looks as stunned by the words as Steve is. The smile that breaks over Steve's face is instinctive, and Tony answers in kind.

The moment breaks when Strange clears his throat. "Well then. If you're both ready?"

Steve almost asks about the cure that Tony apparently knows about, but he doesn't want to steal the warmth and joy in Tony's eyes, so he keeps his mouth shut. He'll have to ask Bruce later.

* * *

On day seventeen, Tony shows Steve the scrambler.

"What's this?"

"I think it'll dampen my thoughts enough that you don't have to hear them."

 _It's hardly a burden_ , Steve doesn't say. "Is that what you want? It, um. It doesn't look like it fits your style."

And it doesn't. It looks like a cross between a crown and a headset, though like one that had been through the wringer. Tony wrinkles his nose. "I was more worried about functionality than appearances."

It's so unlike Tony, always so focused on the fusion of function and design, that it twists something in Steve's stomach. How desperate is he to get Steve out of his head? Steve swallows. "It's your call, Tony."

Tony frowns, as though that wasn't the answer he was expecting. "Alright." He looks down at the crown-cum-headset and lifts it tentatively to his head. Steve can feel the anxiety, the concern, the intentional lack of words, and then—

Nothing.

The absence hits Steve like a sucker punch, gut-wrenching and terrible. There's a moment of vertigo, disorienting him and sending him to his knees.

"Steve!"

He's blinking back tears and then Tony's voice is back in his head, his worry digging in between Steve's ribs. Steve gags at the whiplash of it all. It isn't until he becomes aware of Tony's hands on his shoulders that he starts to come back to himself.

"I'm sorry, Steve, I'm so sorry, I didn't think— I didn't—"

Steve reaches up and wraps a hand around Tony's wrist where his palm is heavy on Steve's shoulder. "S'okay, Tones, just— just gimme a sec. We can— we can try again."

"Fuck that," Tony hisses, "I'm not going to do this if it hurts you like this."

"I just— just wasn't expecting it." He looks up at Tony. "Let's try again."

Steve misses the pain in Tony's eyes, too overcome by the ache in his own chest.

It takes them a while, but eventually Steve trains himself to withstand the absence of Tony in his mind. He can't go for very long without getting a raging headache — Tony likens it to a cell phone running out of battery looking for service in a dead zone — but it's long enough to give Tony some reprieve. He can last longer when they're close by, and Tony usually wears it only when they're in the field or up at team dinner. Steve never asks, and no one on the team seems to give a damn either. Even so, it twists something deep in his chest that Tony's so desperate to keep his mind separate that he'd go to such lengths.

It doesn't matter, though. Bruce and Strange will figure something out soon.

* * *

For all that he never thought it in so many words, Steve always knew Tony's mind was beautiful. It's the only way he could create the wonders he did. Steve had known that almost from the start. But knowing and _knowing_ are two different things.

Tony's mind is brilliance incarnate. Sometimes when Steve's holed up in the lab because the scrambler strain has gotten to be too much, Tony takes pity on him and takes it off. In those moments, Steve indulges. He lets himself sink into the beauty of Tony's mind, electric blue and brilliant. It's lights firing at every angle, implicit beauty in every line. He doesn't understand any of it, but he can _feel_ it without understanding. It's dyed the color of the arc reactor, and it burns with the same intensity.

Steve knows there's casings around the arc reactor in Tony's chest that keeps it from burning him, but Steve can tell the way some of the heat leaks through at the end of a long battle. It isn't enough for Tony to complain — sometimes Steve wonders if any pain is enough to make Tony truly complain — but Steve can see the discomfort in the way he moves, even if there's no other discernible injury. Steve wonders if Tony's mind is the same way. If there's moments when the heat and strain gets to be too much.

If there is, Tony's never let Steve be privy to it.

It's nearing the end of week four when, on one such afternoon, drunk on the easy way Tony's mind curls around his that Steve drifts off on the couch in the lab. When he wakes, there's a blanket wrapped over him and the lights are dimmed. There's no sign of Tony.

"Tony?"

"Sir is, for once, resting in his quarters, Captain." JARVIS announces. "Can I be of service?"

Steve tries to ignore the swoop of disappointment low in his belly. "Thank you JARVIS. I'll be alright."

Steve gets to his feet, letting his fingers linger on the blanket before he makes his way to the elevator and up to his quarters. It isn't the way he'd wanted today to end, but he'll live.

Steve's just beginning to doze off in his own bed when he wakes to an unfamiliar curling low in his gut. It takes him a moment to come all the way around to conscious, and by the time he does he's already got his hand around his cock. He has visions of big hands and strong thighs and it's nothing like what he usually fantasizes about. It's that thought that pulls him out of his easy reverie and into the reality of the moment. This isn't his arousal he's feeling. It's Tony's.

Feeling like the worst kind of voyeur, Steve takes his hand off his dick. Tony should be able to have some things that are still private, even if his masturbatory fantasies apparently aren't going to be one of those things. He's pretty sure Tony has no idea Steve's listening in, if the way he keeps going is anything to judge by. It leaves Steve curious about the whole thing; had Tony known this would come through the bond? Is that why he's ben so grouchy lately? Because he hasn't gotten off? But if he'd known, what changed today? What gave him the freedom and confidence to do it anyway tonight? Or has he been using the scrambler and just forgot it tonight? Or—

Tony does something with his hand and Steve can feel phantom fingers on his cock, the memory of a fantasy of a touch that Steve has to live without. Not that he'd ever think about approaching Tony that way. They're teammates, and that's more than Steve deserves, really. But then there's heat in his gut and warmth in his chest and then he's coming untouched. It's heady and wonderful and everything Steve hadn't thought to want from this bond.

The instant the thought settles, though, it twists in his chest. This isn't something he's supposed to see. It isn't something he's supposed to be privy to. God, he might as well have just—

Steve throws himself to his feet and barely makes it to the toilet before he vomits.

God. He'd never asked for this. They have to find a way to get rid of this and soon.

Steve's not going to be able to hold back much longer.

* * *

Unfortunately, Steve doesn't even make it past the morning before Tony finds out. He takes one look at the pallor in Steve's skin and the bags under his eyes and blanches. He's on his feet and halfway across the room, hands extended in seconds. "Steve—"

Steve cuts him off. "I'm sorry."

Tony stops dead. "What?"

"I shouldn't have seen that. There are some things that you deserve to keep quiet. Private. I'm sorry."

Tony drops his hands. "You're sorry."

"I'm sorry."

"Right." Tony's voice is flat. He laughs, but there's no humor in the sound. "Right. You're sorry. Of course you are." He runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. "What was I even thinking that maybe—" He shakes his head again and marches down to the lab. "Catch you later Steve."

It isn't until Tony's thoughts go abruptly quiet that Steve realizes that Tony had left his coffee behind.

* * *

Tony takes to wearing the scrambler even when they're not together. Steve doesn't bother trying to douse the pain with painkillers. This is what he deserves for looking into Tony's most private thoughts. He doesn't deserve to complain about the pain.

Tony adds the scrambler tech to the windows in the lab. Three days later he adds it to the suit. Steve gets used to the constant, low-level ache that only ever seems to subside around three AM when Tony goes to sleep. Steve isn't sure if that's because Tony takes the headset off when he goes to sleep or because it falls off. He's never watched Tony sleep other than the drug-induced sleep in the infirmary, and that's nothing like what he must be like in his own bed.

Not that Steve's thought about that.

Steve starts sleeping during the day to avoid the worst of the headaches and revels in the reprieve that night brings. It leaves him distracted and disoriented on several missions, to the point where he names Nat as acting commander until they can figure out how to get him out of Tony's head. It works, for the most part.

It works right up until the day he jumps between Tony and a harpoon designed specifically to pierce Tony's armor. It isn't until Tony drops the faceplate and stares down at Steve, hitting him full-force with Tony's thoughts that Steve really realizes how badly he's missed the sound of Tony's thoughts.

 _Idiot idiot idiot idiot—_ "Clint I need evac now!" _idiot idiot idiot idiot—_

"Gotta— Gotta keep y' safe," Steve mumbles over the overlapping sounds of Tony's frantic mind and perfectly calm words.

Tony tips his head down to stare at Steve. "Cap—" _gotta tell him gotta make him understand gotta— gotta—_

Steve reaches up to pat clumsily at the hand Tony has on his wound— and when did that get there? "S'okay, Tony. 'M gonna be okay."

"Steve!"

**_Steve._ **

* * *

Steve punches in his code to the workshop, ready to apologize for whatever he's done to upset Tony this time. It's been a solid thirty-six hours in the infirmary since the battle — apparently the harpoon had punctured a lung and come a bit too close to some important arteries — and Tony has been to see him exactly zero times. The rest of the team had been walking on eggshells around him, like they know something he doesn't. Whatever it is, it must have something to do with Tony, which is why the lab is the first place he goes when he's discharged. He's fully expecting Tony to ream him out when he gets there, and he's not ashamed of what that's going to do to him. Better to take his licks now and then go back to his headaches and pain later on.

Which is why he's taken aback when he's hit full-force with the power of Tony's thoughts in a way he hasn't in weeks.

_That man is just fucking unfair, I swear to fucking god, if he doesn't stay the fuck out of my way with his kindness and his righteousness and his perfect chest and his perfect eyes and his perfect fucking ass, I'll—_

Steve chokes on his tongue.

Tony whips around, popping up his welding helmet and staring at Steve from across the workshop. There's terror in his eyes and silence in his mind, like he's been caught out in the worst possible way. Steve can see the way his throat works, desperation in the motion, before he rushes to the console in the center of the room, fingers scrabbling at the scrambler. Steve's heart drops into his stomach, his throat going tight as he darts toward the console at the same time as Tony, catching Tony's wrist in a grip as careful as he can manage when he's so desperate. Tony looks up at him, eyes wide and warm and so, so close.

"Tony."

Tony makes a sound that might be a gasp or a sob or a plea, but all Steve hears is the sheer _want_ in the sound. It's all the confirmation Steve needs.

Steve moves without thinking, leaning in to kiss a bruise into Tony's lips. _Mine_ , he can't help thinking. Tony's lips part underneath his and Steve wastes no time slipping his tongue into Tony's mouth, desperate and seeking, wanting in a way he's never let himself be with Tony before. _All mine._ Tony whimpers against his mouth, his body shifting under Steve's hands. Steve can't wait any longer. He grabs Tony by the thighs and hoists him bodily up onto the console, uncaring of what he might be damaging as he shoves his way between Tony's instinctively spread thighs. He presses their hips together, all without disengaging his mouth from Tony's.

Tony tries to pull his mouth away, but Steve's having exactly none of that. He cups his hand around the back of Tony's head, pulling him in close, his mind a litany of _mine, mine, mine, never letting go of him again, mine, mine, mine_. All at once Tony goes slack against him, his body loose and easy against Steve. He drapes his arms over Steve's shoulders. Steve can feel him mumbling against Steve's lips and it isn't until he stops to think that he realizes there's silence in his mind again, even with the two of them twined together as closely as possible. He pulls back, staring into Tony's eyes, his heart in his throat with the idea that he might have lost this closest link to Tony.

_Still here, Steve._

Steve's eyes go wide, heart pounding in his chest. "Tony—"

_Still here. And I am, you know._

"You are what?"

_Yours._

Steve's breath catches in his chest. _Yeah?_

Tony's smile goes wide and bright, blinding in its joy. _Yeah._

Steve laughs, leaning in and burying his head in Tony's throat. _God. You're perfect._

_Pot, kettle._

Steve laughs again and tilts his head up to kiss Tony again. _Did you know?_

Tony hums against his lips. _Know what?_

_What this would do._

Tony sighs, pulling away. Steve whines, leaning in to kiss Tony's neck, sucking a bruise into his throat. "Strange had an inkling."

Steve pulls back, searching Tony's eyes. "And you didn't want this?"

Tony laughs, something bitter in it. Steve kisses the sound away. _I didn't think I could stand knowing you didn't care about me the way I care about you._

Steve blinks. "What?"

"I mean, it was obvious that you didn't want to actually see what was going on inside my head, so I figured—"

"No, I mean... what do you mean the way you care about me?"

Tony goes stiff, and Steve can feel the fear slipping through Tony's defenses. "Steve. Don't— Don't make me say it."

"Tony—"

"Don't."

Steve swallows. "That I don't love you?" Tony whimpers. "You really think, after all this, that I don't love you, Tony?"

"Steve—"

"Tony." Steve leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of Tony's mouth. "What about any of this makes you think I don't love you?"

Tony groans, turning to catch Steve's lips with his. _No, Steve. No, I don't think that._

Steve smiles into the kiss. _Good. I'd hate to think that I had led you astray._

There's laughter in the room and joy in Steve's chest. It's partially his, but so too is it Tony's it's a beautiful feedback loop, circling them higher and higher and higher and, oh, if this is what kissing is like—

_What's sex going to be like?_

They pull back. Neither of them is sure who had thought that. Neither of them really care. It's an intoxicating thought.

Steve forces himself to slow down, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "Any idea how long this'll last?"

"Should be— should be permanent." Tony sounds breathless with something Steve can't name.

Heat flares in Steve's gut, and he can see and feel the answering arousal in Tony's eyes and through the bond. _Yeah?_

"Yeah."

Steve takes two more deep breaths, calming himself down. "Then. Then will you. Will you let me take you to dinner?"

Tony's breath catches. Steve can feel it through the bond and hear it in the air. Steve forces himself to look at Tony instead of relying on the bond alone. His lips are parted, his pupils blown, and Steve knows he wants this as bad at Steve does. "You know you don't have to wine and dine me, Steve. I'm already a sure thing."

Steve smiles. It feels shaky on his lips. "I know. But you deserve it. You deserve to be wined and dined. So please. Let me."

Tony licks his lips. "Okay."

Steve leans in to kiss him. "Thank you."

_And then we'll come home and fuck until the sun comes up. Okay?_

Steve laughs against Tony's lips. "Whatever you want, Tony." _Whatever you want._


End file.
